


Season 2 Episode 6: Past out

by Heligena



Series: Season 2 Drabbles [6]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:06:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heligena/pseuds/Heligena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alrighty then drabble up for season 2 episode 6.<br/>It's a quick look at Carmilla's thoughts on being caught between versions of herself- the old and the new.  And the pull that comes with both.<br/>Or something that sounds a little less wanky than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Season 2 Episode 6: Past out

It shouldn’t be this easy.  
She knows that.  
At least some part of her does; down deep buried under layers of cotton and muscle... it should be a struggle, a fight. 

But then she heard that familiar voice....  
The one she’d spent years trying to emulate and never quite managed to. She’d gotten the drawl down of course. The low pitch with just the right vibration next to a warm shell-like ear. But that smooth sense of assurance, that confidence that made sure everyone listening was aware the person speaking possessed each and every arch and heartbeat in the room...that was the twang she had never been able to quite match.  
But God, how she’d wanted to.

And now Mattie was here. Right in front of her.  
Back at the old stomping grounds and the new fractured, delicate outline Carmilla had drawn for herself almost falls to the ground at the sight of her.

She should be torn, right?  
She is torn.

So aware; so horribly aware of Laura’s eyes on the two of them. Sickened and scared and huddled up on the couch a few metres away wondering why her girlfriend and supposed saviour wasn’t plunging wood through meat and cavity to make sure she could lie safe in her bed.  
It was a legitimate question.  
An obvious one full of straight and imperfect lines.  
Understandable for a nineteen year old whose life wasn’t ripped from her on a frigid night when the thread-count of a satin dress was the biggest concern she’d had.

But... Carmilla had lived a hundred lives since her human one and the trust was that Mattie had been there for most of them; a phantom presence even when she hadn’t been able to be there in person. 

A sister. A true sister attached to her by coiled strings of blood. One that taught her how to control the burning clawing hunger in the first few centuries, channelling her rage into the right gulleys so that the city didn’t run with it but dripped quietly instead. Taking her out one night a week not indiscriminately like the rest of them but pointing her towards the power mongers in Vienna that threatened their family. Letting her loose on their watered, gardened estates when the time was right. Cementing their bond together with blood in a hurricane of viscera and adrenaline. Revelling in every ruined outfit those outings always ended in.  
And Christ, was she was brutal. Sadistic in all the most beautiful ways.  
The sort of thing a painting couldn’t quite capture- the kind you could only show in a wood carving by scraping out deep grooves in a piece of the world.

More cunning than the brothers and sisters that came later. Her eyes keener than the rest and somehow despite all of the griping Carmilla had indulged in, able to see the wonderful viciousness inside her when everyone else had written her off. Even their mother.  
She’d noticed the pool of malevolent oil that sat in the pool of Carmilla Karnstein’s stomach and hadn’t turned away. Hell she’d embraced it. Appreciated it.  
Longed to set it on fire to see how high the blaze could go.

And Laura...  
No, don’t look over there.

Carmilla forced her body into a lounging position against the arm of the chaise longue, an inch away from her girlfriend’s shoulder as if none of these things whirled about inside her head.  
It was almost convincing too. 

She could see the tiny blonde receding into herself; trying to assimilate this new callous person with the girl she was... maybe, possibly beginning to fall for.  
Carmilla had the briefest urge to wrap her in her arms then and playact, pretend that this was nothing more than an awkward, gruesome dream; all this talk of murder and mayhem. Every single smile, every single grin.

But she couldn’t do it.  
Wouldn’t do it.  
Because as much as Laura’s dark eyes drew that oh so expected sense of shame from her, the freedom that tagged along with it was just as intoxicating. Maybe more so.  
To be allowed to remember and breathe; to break and unbreak each rib one by one and fill her lungs with the smell of cloying blood and vitriol was something that invigorated her as much as it ever did.

To be who she was if only for a moment.  
If only in a memory.

And Mattie saw it.  
Of course she did.

The glint in those obsidian eyes was clear enough and Carmilla raised her chin towards her in defiance; was never one to accept criticism even when it was warranted.  
Even when it was offered in love.

Mattie wasn’t fooled however. Her iron grip made that pretty clear. The quick superior glances she threw Laura’s way showed just how mediocre she considered the quivering human curled up nearby. And Carmilla had to restrain the growl in her throat each time it happened, while keeping the smile firmly in place on her face.

The real problem though?  
The real problem was that Carmilla couldn’t tell. Couldn’t work out whether the snarl rumbling low in her oesophagus was due to Mattie’s menacing intentions towards the girl she cared so deeply for. Or whether it was a noise made by the beast inside of her- responding to the presence of a kindred spirit. Howling at the moon because it was big and bold and abjectly refused to cower.

Which was it?

Carmilla had no idea. And the overwhelming sense of confusion that came with it was almost worse than the urgent pleading look settled on her lover’s face.  
Because for a moment she had no idea who she was supposed to be.  
The hero? Self-sacrificing and noble?  
Or the villain? Cold-hearted. Wanting nothing more than to throw off the shackles of this interminable civilisation so she run barefoot in the streets where tarmac and earth painted the soles of her feet?

Mattie and Laura were both looking at her now.

Willing her to choose and oh God, the room was way too hot. Too close. Too everything.

Fighting the urge to claw at her own throat, Carmilla stared nonchalantly at each of them in turn, offering each the smirk that she’d made all her own without needing to copy off anyone else.

Then she drew in a silent breath.  
And opened her mouth to speak.


End file.
